Marianne is a professional chess player

Answer choices

1. A

   No Impact: outside of matches0% picked this

   The officials of chess have little or no authority to control the behavior of its professional

   This is saying that chess officials can't mandate behavior outside of matches, but no one was thinking that they can. Marianne isn't saying, "How dare you chess officials tell me I can't hum on my own time", because they weren't saying that. The chess officials are only trying to control her behavior within matches, so this answer isn't objecting to anything said.

   0%
2. B

   No Impact: amateur matches1% picked this

   Many of the customs of amateur chess matches are not observed by

   This argument is only about what will or won't be tolerated for professional chess matches. This answer is talking about what goes on at amateur chess matches, and we don't have any interest in that. Whether amateur chess matches do or don't allow humming won't have any impact on this conversation.

   1%
3. C

   Too Weak: some34% picked this

   Not all of a person’s involuntary actions are actions of which that

   Any time we see "not all A's are B", we re-write it in the positive, "Some A's are not B". So this is saying that, "Some involuntary actions are actions that people are aware of". The premise of this argument is that Marianne is unaware of her involuntary humming. We might be tempted by this answer, if we thought it was letting us say, "Marianne -- we don't believe you're unaware. Because sometimes people have involuntary actions that they are aware of." 1. it's very, very, very rare to attack a premise, so we shouldn't be attracted to this. We're trying to fight the conclusion and argue that Marianne should be held responsible for her humming, even if we accept that she was initially unaware of it. 2. Since this is only saying "some", it's just saying "There is at least one involuntary action that a person is aware of". Okay, is that claim referring to humming? Maybe, maybe not. Since we don't even know if this answer actually applies to humming, it's very weak innuendo that would really be attacking the idea that Marianne was unaware, rather than attacking the reasoning that, "because she was unaware, she shouldn't be held responsible".

   34%
4. D

   Correct65% picked this

   A person who hums involuntarily can easily learn to notice it and can thereby come

   Why this is right

   This allows us to argue that Marianne should be held responsible for her humming. We grant her the truth of her premises. She was unaware of her involuntary humming. But that doesn't mean that we have to just allow her to hum in the competition. Work on yourself, Marianne! You can become more observant about when you start to hum and practice coping behaviors to turn off that humming. This answer has some lovable power to it, because we're saying she can "easily" learn to notice it and control it. So asking her to stop humming, as a precondition of participating in these pro chess tournaments, is not a big ask.

   Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   65%
5. E

   Too Weak1% picked this

   Not all of Marianne’s opponents are distracted by her humming during

   Too Weak: some / not all Strengthens, if anything Again, whenever we have "not all A's are B" constructions, we flip them into (some A's are not B). So this answer is saying, "Some of Marianne's opponents are not distracted by her humming." Not only is that super weak, it would also help Marianne to argue that she shouldn't be disqualified for humming.

   1%